


i’ll be by your side (even in death)

by skittykitty



Category: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Hurt/Comfort, Nonbinary Character, Pokemon Evolution, Recovery, Reunions, Suicidal Thoughts, quite a few
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28440321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skittykitty/pseuds/skittykitty
Summary: After saving the world, Mudkip and Charmander need to save their friendship. With Charmander trying to follow Mudkip in death, and Mudkip unable to deal with the guilt of all those they’ve lost, how can they even begin?
Relationships: Hitokage | Charmander & Mizugorou | Mudkip
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	i’ll be by your side (even in death)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you [Cultivation](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cultivation/pseuds/Cultivation) for betaing this!!

The meteor shattered into a million pieces— completely blowing away Rayquaza’s Cloud Tower in the explosion. Of course, this also meant the two brave souls who had begged for their help were now falling back to solid ground.

But did Rayquaza  _ want _ to help them?

They were two young idiots who thought the world would bend to their ideals. They were children.

_ “So?” _

_ “We accepted that from the start!” _

The duo wanted to fall— wanted to be together in the end.

Rayquaza lived for ruining others’ dreams… this was just one more.

_(The truth was they couldn’t deal with the blood of children on their claws. The Legendary Birds warned them of the rescue team. Why_ _hadn’t they_ listened _?)_

* * *

They woke up.

It was a surprise to everyone involved.

Charmander woke first with a gasp, countered quickly by Mudkip’s slow awakening. They may have been one of the best rescue teams around, but they were the most out of sync Pokémon, too.

They worked best like that— like two cogs of different clocks, forced to work together. A fire-type and a water-type.

Opposites.

_ Best friends. _

The cheering is truly what made Charmander wake up. He turned to stare at Mudkip, his partner, his best friend. 

_ (His human best friend.) _

Charmander smiled wide and celebrated with all their friends, hiding the pain until it could be shared with the others.

_ Turning around to see your best friend disappearing into thin air was possibly one of the hardest things one could go through. _

But... he grinned and bore it. He hugged Mudkip, holding back tears.

“I love you and I’ll never stop missing you.”

Mudkip disappeared into the air, leaving only memories to remember them by.

_ Finally,  _ Charmander thought with some degree of relief, feeling tears begin to cascade down his face.  _ Maybe if I die now, I’ll be able to see them again. _

But with all of their  _ (only his now)  _ friends around him, he hesitated. Charmander couldn’t hurt them like that.

Not after today.

Maybe in the middle of the night, he would be able to.

* * *

As the day was ending, Mudkip returned.

There were tears, promises remade, and a plethora of hugs to go around.

Soon, the two of them were alone.

“Why did you—” They both began before refraining, realizing both had important questions to ask. Charmander stared into his friend’s grey eyes; they both chuckled.

“You first,” he whispered. The silence reigned, the chill of midnight air prickling at his skin.

Mudkip broke the peace with a sigh, “Rayquaza… saved us.” Charmander’s flame lit up the side of Mudkip’s face, showing the hesitancy in their eyes as they spoke. “But… you told them to blow up the meteor. We could have lived in the sky with Rayquaza— we could have survived.”

Charmander hesitated for a moment, “What are you saying?”

“You didn’t want to let me go.” Mudkip’s hardened grey eyes met amber. “Why couldn’t you let me go?”

_ I was nothing before I met you. I was a coward and you… you were brave. I was a spark and you were the wood that kept me burning. _

“You’re my best friend.”

Mudkip smiled, “You’re my best friend, too. But… do you think Alakazam would throw himself off a cliff if Tyranitar was dying?” 

Charmander glanced away from his best friend in shame, claws digging into soft dirt.  _ Maybe I should’ve let the world be destroyed,  _ he remembered thinking seconds after the explosion.  _ For just a few more minutes with them. _

He was wrong then.

Maybe, he was wrong now.

“No,” whispers Charmander

“If we want to be as good of a team as them, we need to evolve.” Mudkip paused for a lull, “But, not like  _ evolving,  _ more like… changing how we think?”

Charmander chuckled mirthlessly. They needed to be…  _ better.  _ They couldn’t keep doing this to each other— keeping secrets that would hurt the other, taking hits meant for the other.

“Okay.” Their eyes met for the final time. “As long as you never just… accept that something is inevitable.” This time, it was Mudkip who looked ashamed. “Nothing is inevitable. We’ve already changed the  _ world,  _ Mudkip. Nothing is impossible for us, as long as we’re together.”

“Okay.”

They smiled at each other. 

“Good night, Mudkip.”

“Good night,  _ best friend _ .”

* * *

Life was good since the threat of the meteor. Mudkip and Charmander’s team had handled it well and somehow came out alive and with minimal wounds.  _ Unlike them,  _ Alakazam thinks. He couldn’t help the wave of bitterness overtaking him.

Alakazam’s foot had been removed in the wake of the battle against Groudon.  _ There were too many burns _ , they said. Stepping in magma while he let Charmander and Mudkip take over was the final straw.

His skin tugged over the numerous scars, scraping his mind raw. It was hard to focus nowadays. It took so much energy to understand what others said with his deaf ear and half-functioning eye.

But he had to focus now.

It had been a week since Mudkip had miraculously come back to life.

The two were as close as they normally were, but their days were taken up by constant jobs. They only had time for one another and seemed to forget their other friends even existed. 

They were reliant on each other… to a  _ fault _ .

Seeing history repeating itself, Alakazam decided to intervene.

* * *

“Hey, Charmander! Mudkip!” He called out, hovering slightly above the ground (his own way of walking in the wake of his amputation). He had caught the two picking out jobs on the bulletin board. “Wanna spend the day with me?”

The two looked skeptical but interested.  _ They truly believe there are people to save.  _ “I’m sure I could get some of the other teams to take some jobs off you guys.”

After a moment of deliberation, the two agreed. And with that, the plan truly began.

Firstly, they walked into the square to Shiftry and Caterpie talking together. Caterpie was the first Pokémon the two had recruited and was special to them.

“Mudkip! Charmander!!” she called out, stars in her eyes. “You haven’t been around much. How have you been?”

It was good for them to see the impact they were having on the community.  _ Something he had almost never seen until recently.  _ Someday, they would get burned out from doing too many jobs and this community would pull them back together.

They spent some time chatting with Caterpie before Shiftry interrupted. “You two… I’m sorry. You saved my life and I almost never got the chance to thank you until it was too late.”

Shiftry promised to help them with anything they would need, no matter how minor it seemed. The duo grinned and thanked him profusely for the offer. 

Of course, they tried to decline, but Shiftry didn’t let them.

When the exchange was over, Alakazam brought them to Whiscash, where they reunited with a few more old friends.

It was a good day for the two, but one comment truly showed how much they needed his help.

“Why do you have so many scars now, Charmander?” 

“Oh,” he laughed easily at the question, looking at Mudkip with something like love— and something like misery— in his eyes. “Me and Mudkip made this deal. They have a habit of taking hits for me, so I told them anytime they did that, I would take a hit. No matter what.”

There was a moment of silence. The few listening processed what had been said.

“It’s really helping me get past the instinct, though!” Mudkip and Charmander didn’t seem to understand what they were doing— how much they were ruining each other’s chances of having a long career. 

_ He would have to explain it to them. But not now. Not when this was supposed to be their day to relax. _

Tomorrow, he pledged.

* * *

It was a good day, all in all. They got to see old friends, bond with new ones, and enjoy their life together— just the two of them, Mudkip and Charmander.

_ (There was a whole team of recruits; it wasn’t just the two of them. Why, in moments like these, could they never seem to remember that?) _

But… the day wasn’t perfect. It never would be.

Staring at Alakazam’s injuries, watching him struggle to simply  _ exist _ ... 

If they had arrived sooner— avoided fighting as they went through the dungeon— then the three of them wouldn’t be hurt.

_ All of their injuries were their fault. _

Charmander didn’t deserve any of the blame— he had taken so many hits— barely making it through the dungeon itself. It was Mudkip who had come out scot-free.

_ (A selfish human, hurting all of those around them, that’s what you are.) _

They hadn’t seen Charizard or Tyranitar in weeks, either from them throwing themselves into rescue missions or pure hatred _.  _ It was most likely the latter.

_ (How could anyone stand them? They hurt everyone around them. Especially Charmander… always Charmander.) _

Last they had seen, Charizard had lost the ability to fly from his injuries. The sight of his charred and mangled wing haunted them, alongside the darkened burns across his chest. Apparently, according to Alakazam, Charizard and Tyranitar were recovering well. They had returned to their families since their careers in rescue missions were over.

As Mudkip drifted to sleep, thoughts of their numerous failures haunted their dreams.

* * *

Months passed.

Life… moved on. Alakazam told them about how destructive their deal was... and they stopped. The two of them continued to save Pokémon in need.

Charmander was the first happy with the arrangement. He was saving people and had free time to hang out with Mudkip—  _ and  _ to do his own things.

It happened one day when he decided to spend the sunlight hours with their recruits. 

Gible, Dragonair, and Eevee were all shaping to be a good team on their own. They had a heavy hitter in Dragonair, strong moves in Gible, and Eevee truly held the team together. The first two would often fight during a mission, arguing about who should get all the glory.

But it was Eevee who brought them together in the first place. 

They spent the day talking about strategy: learning moves that could help in a tricky dungeon, when to run, and what items one should bring on a rescue mission. 

By the time they finished, the sky was almost pitch-black.

“Oh!” Charmander gasped. “I need to head home! I’d love to talk to you guys later!”

“Bye!” The three of them called out, watching him run to his friend’s home.

When he arrived, Mudkip was already asleep. He smiled, tucking some leaves around his best friend before leaving for his own house.

In the morning, he woke up  _ different. _

There were claws on his hands, he realized as he accidentally dug them into the earth. With a shriek of panic, he threw a chunk of his flooring into the air. 

And— and his skin. It wasn’t as orange as the night before— now, it was  _ red. _

He ran into the square to ask what had happened to him.

_ You evolved,  _ Alakazam said.  _ It’s amazing… has some big event happened recently?  _

Was there an event that had occurred?

There were the vows they had sworn.  _ Mudkip had wanted him to be less clingy. _

He had succeeded.

_ Charmeleon  _ grinned at how much he had changed in the past two months.

* * *

Charmeleon had done so much, yet they were stagnant.  _ Like always,  _ Mudkip would think in the dead of night.  _ Charmeleon has always been better than me. Why did I ever think otherwise? _

Weeks passed after Charmeleon’s evolution— _of Charmeleon leaving them behind_ — before any big thing happened to them.

They were on a big rescue mission. It could get them noticed by some of the highest-ranking rescue teams.

Mudkip had to make sure they got through this dungeon.

But… they had to keep their promises.

On the twentieth floor, an enemy aimed at Charmeleon. Their friend didn’t see, too busy attacking someone else. But,  _ they  _ had seen.

_ (Months ago, they would have leaped forward and taken the hit.  _

_ But they couldn’t live in the past.  _

_ Not here, and not now.) _

They let Charmeleon be hit.

It was quickly healed with an Oran Berry and the enemies were defeated.

_ (Maybe all of their self-sacrificing actions had been selfish at heart.  _

_ Maybe they had wanted Charmeleon to feel thankful to them.) _

* * *

In the morning, everything was different... but somehow, just the same.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on my [tumblr](https://skitter-kitteruwu.tumblr.com/) where you can pester me to finish half-thought out ideas and scream to me about fics!!


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